latest ones have been vinyl records and tea cups.
TELL US A JOKE:
What animal is 'out of bounds'? A: An exhausted kangaroo!

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
La Crosse, WI

WHAT'S THE LAST THING YOU BOUGHT?
Two oranges

CURRENT JOB:
Kwik Trip

WHAT'S IN YOUR POCKET RIGHT NOW?:
A lighter and a receipt for discounted pencils

DREAM JOB:
Photographer for National
Geographic Magazine

IF A GENIE GRANTED YOU ONE WISH, WHAT WOULD
YOU ASK FOR?
A lifetime supply of gasoline

LAST THING YOU GOOGLED:
Piano tabs for Adeles song 'Hometown Glory'
IF YOU COULD LIVE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, WHERE
WOULD IT BE?
Rome
WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
Experience weightlessness

WHAT PERSON, DEAD OR ALIVE, WOULD YOU LIKE TO
HAVE DINNER WITH?
Pocahontas
FIRST CONCERT YOU WENT TO:
Avril Lavigne! with Simple Plan
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PART OF SECOND SUPPER?
The music directory

WHAT IS YOUR PET PEEVE?
When people smack their gum. Ick.

HOW DO YOU KNOW SHOOGYPOP?
I met Shuggypop while I was sitting outside of Jules Coffee House
when he rode by. I was admiring his bicycle. He then stopped and
asked if I wanted to ride it, but I was too shy. I never did...

WHAT IS YOUR BEVERAGE OF CHOICE?
Pomegranate Tazo Teas, Delicious!
CELEBRITY CRUSH:
It's a tie between David Bowie and Hugh Laurie

— Compiled by Shuggypop Jackson,
shuggypop.jackson@secondsupper.com

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielwesk
WHAT IS YOUR GUILTIEST PLEASURE?
Obsessions. I get super obsessed and start collecting things. My

W3923 HWY 16 West Salem

FREE BEER

n

FREE WINGS

FREE BOWLING
Every Monday at Features in West Salem
FREE BEER – 5:30–6:30 PM
FREE WINGS – 7:30–8:30 PM
FREE BOWLING AFTER 9 PM
FREE DRAFT BEER – Bud Light, Miller Lite, Pabst
Beer Will Be Served in 10 oz. Plastic Cups, One at a Time

6 WINGS PER PERSON – Plain, Hot Or Mild

(Must Purchase A Beverage To Receive Wings, Sauces & Celery Extra)

FREE BOWLING with the Purchase of a Shoe Rental
MUST BE 21 TO PARTICIPATE

FIRST THINGS FIRST
Lacking a bit of Metal in your life? Well JB’s has a cure
for that. On Wedensday, May 4 the Wings of Steel Tour will
be rocking the doors off La Crosse’s humble speakeasy. The
tour brings together two of metal’s loudest bands Angels of Babylon and Seventh
Calling. Angels of Babylon is a brand new
lineup of metal heavyweights featuring
Rihno (former drummer of the biggest
band on the planet, Manowar) and legendary thrash metal bassist David Ellefson (formerly of Megadeath). Vocalist David Fefolt and guitarist Ethan Bosh round
out this face melting foursome. Seventh Calling is a Minneapolis-based group that churns out their own brand of modern
metal that draws heavily on the classic ‘80s metal sound. They
boast no love songs or fake angry anthems; this is as metal as
it gets. Show starts at 9 p.m.

1

Get Fit

Tired of carrying around those extra winter pounds? Well
then check out some of the events at the La Crosse Fitness
Festival going on this weekend. The festival kicks off on Friday
night at 5 p.m. at the La Crosse Center with
a Health and Fitness Expo. The festivities
continue with a bike tour a 5k run walk.
Registration for these events starts bright
and early on Saturday May 1 at 7 a.m., near
the Bandshell in Riverside. For those of you
with wee ones the registration for the youth races begins at 11
a.m., with the mascot race starting at noon. For the serious bikers out there, there are two separate time trials happening at
Granddad’s Bluff at 3:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. These events are the
build up to the La Crosse Marathon. That race starts at 7 a.m. in
Pettibone and concludes in Myrick Park.

2

Play our namesake

Lacrosse in La Crosse!?! Yes La Crosse will finally live up to its
namesake and host the Great Lakes Lacrosse League’s Conference
Tournament this weekend. Matches will be
held at UW-La Crosse Sports Complex and
at the North Campus Field. The matches
begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday and typically
last about an hour and 30 minutes. Teams
from seven different states will be competing in this year’s tournament. Our hometown heroes play their first
match at 11:15 a.m. on Saturday. So come on down and see where
La Crosse gets its name.

3

Live inside the box

4

Camp out in cardboard this Friday night as the UW-L chapter of Habitat for Humanity hosts its annual
Cardboard Village. Designed to raise awareness about substandard housing in the Coulee Region, students will assemble cardboard
houses and sleep in them overnight. Live
music provided by 1,2,3...Walrus kicks off at
7 p.m. To register for the event or to make a donation, please contact Sara Sturdevant at sturdeva.sara@uwlax.edu.

See the string-pullers

Ancient stories of human foibles and magic will be presented at the Three Rivers Waldorf School Puppet Show this Saturday,
April 30 at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Muse
Theater, 1353 Avon St. Shadow puppets and
marionettes will tell the story of Akimba and
the Magic Cow, Abyoyo and Tikki Tikki Tembo.
Following the evening performace, there will
be a backstage party where you can meet the
puppets and puppeteers. This is a Three Rivers Waldorf School Production and all ages are welcome. Tickets will be sold at the door
and are $5 per person or $10 per family.

5

4// April 28, 2011

COMMUNITY

Second Supper

Round Nine: Recounting the Recalls

$1

Every vote counts, but some call for a recount. Paging Sancho Panza!

By Bob Treu
Special to Second Supper

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TUESDAYS at 8PM

WEDNESDAYS from 4-11PM

○ NOT YOUR GRANDMA’S ○

MyEaglesNest.NET

Or I might call this recalling the recount.
The two words are now horribly mixed in my
mind. Each one has several meanings, and
some of them interlace in intriguing ways.
To recall can mean to remember. Generally,
voters are better at this than elected officials.
It can also refer to a manufacturer recalling
a defective product, which does have some
relevance to electoral recalls. Similarly, to recount suggests the process of counting over,
possibly because the counter, like the clerk of
Waukesha County during the KloppenburgProsser Supreme Court race, was distracted.
Recounting can also refer to telling stories.
Curiously, French, Spanish and German all
connect the act of narrating with counting.
Getting the numbers right is an important
part of the story.
Ask anybody on the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) who has
time to talk. The board is a useful institution,
invented to oversee elections and call foul
when someone is caught tampering with
the levers of democracy. It was designed to
deal with the occasional recount mandated
by close elections, and with the slight chance
the electorate would want some elected official to retire early. No one anticipated eight
(or possibly more) recall elections and a
state court race with two candidates less than
a half a percent apart in a single season. The
GAB is suddenly very busy.
Our local recall race isn’t helping matters. Senator Kapanke’s opponents had no
trouble gathering enough signatures, even
after the inevitable challenges. So Jennifer
Schilling officially declared her intention to
run against the senator, and it looked like
the race was on. But then, in this most surprising of springs, the senator announced
that his opponents hadn’t done the paperwork properly. He claims that Pat Schaller,
organizer of the effort, did not file a campaign financial report. The Democrats, on
the other hand, argue the Republican’s
argument depends upon a false distinction
between the recall committee, which did the
paper work, and Schaller, who merely acted

in the committee’s behalf. Graeme Zielinski,
Democratic Party spokesman, told me: “The
challenge to the recall of Dan Kapanke is
not worth the paper it is printed on, even
though Scott Walker and Kapanke are trying
to end recycling in Wisconsin.”
The GAB has two weeks to decide on
the validity of Kapanke’s challenge, but I
wouldn’t want to be the one to tell citizens
their efforts have been in vain. I don’t think
they’re in the mood to hear that, and I don’t
think such a decision would be in the spirit
of democracy.
As of now, recall petitions have been
filed for five Republicans and three Democrats. If all five Republicans lose and one
Democrat, the Dems would have an 18-15
advantage, just to ponder one possibility.
However, there’s still time for other petitions
to be filed. My guess is that Glenn Grothman
will join him on the GOP side, and there’s a
chance Julie Lassa will do so on the Dem’s
side. Wednesday morning’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel raises the likely number to nine
(six GOP and three Dems). Also, deadlines
have been missed for four Democratic senators: Spencer Coggs, Fred Risser, Lena Taylor and Mark Miller. They should all be safe,
although a separate drive against Miller, run
by the American Recall Coalition of Utah,
has until May 4 to complete its efforts. You
might want to note that in the Republican
vision you can’t vote without a photo ID, but
you can run a Wisconsin recall election without residing here.
Meanwhile, the recounting (as in
checking the numbers) of the Prosser-Kloppenburg Supreme Court race goes forward,
very slowly. Given her current 7,000 vote deficit, it isn’t likely Kloppenburg will prevail,
but, as she says, the recount is worthwhile if it
gives the electorate some confidence in the
honesty of our elections. Prosser, on the other hand, found the idea of a recount “frivolous.” The candidates finally agreed upon a
statewide recount that includes a hand tally
of Milwaukee and other key precincts. Generally hand recounts will occur where older

machines do not allow data to be copied. In
Brookfield, whose votes were found two days
after the election, reversing Kloppenburg’s
narrow lead in favor of Prosser, only two of
the seven precincts will get a hand tally.
Maybe I’m making too much of it,
but I’m still bothered by the difficulty of
verifying touch screen computer votes. An
estimated 10 percent of state voters use
that method, and that includes Brookfield.
None of the media accounts have touched
this issue, although the bloggers are driving
themselves crazy with it. It didn’t help that
the GAB found “nothing suspicious” after its
initial assessment of the Brookfield situation,
which must be a lonely position, since most
of us are walking around with fingers firmly
clamped on our nostrils against the pervasive reek. In any case, the investigation will
continue. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin spring
can try your patience, and our political life
suddenly seems painfully slow, like watching
the Mississippi flood waters recede.
In Don Quixote, Sancho Panza is something of a raconteur, which is how the French
describe a person who recounts a story. One
night, at the campfire, he tells his master
a tale in which a man finds himself having
to cross a stream with a herd of sheep. He
must carry each animal individually, an action Sancho describes in loving detail each
time. After 30 or so episodes the Don becomes impatient and demands to know how
many sheep crossings he will be subjected
to. Sancho then gives him a large number
which has, like so much else, slipped out
of my memory. I’d look it up, but I have a
deadline. Quixote finally orders Sancho to
lump the rest together and get on with it. To
his everlasting credit, the storyteller refuses.
That’s a tale worth recounting. Election officials should learn it by heart.
There’s an even more relevant passage
in Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience: “All voting is a sort of gaming, like
checkers or backgammon….” When I first
read those words years ago, they seemed
cynical, but in this Wisconsin spring they
seem to take on added significance. Indeed,
there was a sort of gamesmanship about the
way one party answered the other with exactly the same number of recall targets. And
to be sure there is a sort of extravagance in
the sheer numbers involved in both the recall and the recount efforts. And there was
something invigorating, like a football game,
in the passionate chanting of the Wisconsin
protesters who wanted to show the country
what democracy looks likes. But it’s time
now for counting and recounting, the careful work of getting the numbers right so that
we can establish a majority. That’s a flawed
concept, as Thoreau knew, but it too is what
democracy looks like.

Second Supper

April 28, 2011 // 5

COMMUNITY

Local CSAs

Calling All Urban Gardeners!

Driftless Farm CSA

By Tegan Daly
Special to Second Supper

Harmony Valley Farm CSA

Nurture your green thumb at free community plots
After spending a portion of my youth
living on an organic farm in a beautiful valley in rural Monroe County, I am often left
unsatisfied with my flowerpot “gardens” on
the back steps of my apartment. A tomato
plant confined to a flowerpot is indeed a
sad sight. Last summer I even tried to plant
a small garden in the yard I share with five
other apartments, but almost found myself in
tears to discover that it had been mown over.
Thankfully, this summer I will be putting my green thumb to use in the Southside
Community Garden, a 70- x 14- foot plot of
land located near Gundersen Lutheran. The
garden, which was started in 2003, is not only
a way to produce food that goes directly to
the community (and volunteers!) at no cost,
it is also used as an educational tool for students of Hamilton Elementary. The students
help out by planting seeds, and their science
curriculum incorporates lessons about seed
germination and good nutrition.
The Southside Garden is an example
of people coming together to improve their
community. It is currently run through
a partnership between YES AmeriCorps,
Gundersen Lutheran, Hamilton Elementary
and the City of La Crosse. The land is owned
by Gundersen, and since 2007, YES AmeriCorps has provided a full-time garden coordinator. Initially, other partners involved

in the garden included the Rotary Club
of La Crosse, Hunger Task Force and the
La Crosse Community Foundation. What
makes a community effort like this so great is
the sense of mutual stewardship and accomplishment. As members of the community,
this garden belongs to all of us. Whether
you’ve ever helped out in the garden or not,
it’s your garden.
Last year about 3,350 pounds of food
were produced and went straight to the
community. Drop-off sites for produce are
at Hamilton Elementary and the Southside
Neighborhood Center throughout the summer and early fall. Volunteers are an essential part of the garden and are always welcome!
So for all the apartment dwellers who
miss having a garden, or people who want to
learn about gardening, or who just want to
help out, the Southside Garden is a great way
to get some dirt under your fingernails! Current spring volunteer hours are Wednesdays
and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., but will
vary depending on the season. Chances are
someone will be out there most days anyway,
so just let them know when works for you.
You can contact the Southside Community
Garden at southsidegardenac@yahoo.com,
or leave a message with Workforce Connections at (608) 789-5620.

Saturdays: 1st Sat. in June–Last Sat. in Oct.
6 a.m until items are sold

Festival Foods—Onalaska

Sundays: 1st Sun. in June–Last Sun. in Oct.
8 a.m–1 p.m

Community Supported Agriculture

By Julie Schneider
Special to Second Supper

Wouldn’t it be great if you received a
wooden crate of fresh fruits and vegetables
every week, grown organically by local farmers? If you are one of the hundreds of local
CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)
members, this is your reality for most of summer and fall.
There are at least 15 CSA farms in the
Coulee Region, ranging from giant operations with hundreds of members, to small
plots serving local families (a small directory
is found on this page). They vary in price,
yield and number of deliveries, but they all
stand for the same core mission: delivering
fresh produce that largely avoids chemicals
and supports the local economy.
This is the season to sign up for CSAs,
which gives farmers seed money at the time
of year they need it most. Over the course
of the harvest, CSA baskets come stocked
with dozens of different fruits, vegetables
and herbs, and some even offer up coffee,
cheese and free-range meat.
Kyle Zenz, CSA manager at Old Oak
Family Farm in Bangor, described the benefits that CSA’s offer their members. “CSA’s
are a great way to eat certified organic food
that is local, healthy and good tasting, which
in turn reduces your personal carbon footprint,” Zenz said. “Members really can connect with their food, knowing where it was
grown and the farmer that guided the process.”
All CSA’s have different delivery policies, but they generally bring their produce

baskets to central drop off points once or
twice a week. The delivery season can last
from 10 to 30 weeks, with options for ordering a full or half basket.
Of course, the privilege of receiving
dozens of fresh fruits and vegetables every
week has price. Shares can range from $200
to $1,000 per season, but Terri Kromenaker,
CSA coordinator for Harmony Valley Farm
in Viroqua, explains that the costs are in line
with retail prices and provide additional value to members.
“Harmony Valley Farm offers a secret
shopping comparison where our CSA members go in to conventional grocery stores
and compare prices of items offered,” Kromenaker said. “The differences are a huge
eye-opener and help explain how the CSA
produce has a much greater value and are
truly solid, healthy items.”
In addition to fresh produce, CSA boxes often arrive with newsletters containing
news from the farm or suggested recipes.
Many CSAs also hold parties where members
can come out and see the farm in action and
meet the people who grow their weekly diet.
“Inviting people over for dinner and offering food grown from a local CSA farm is
one of the best ways to spread the word that
there is a difference in the food that we are
consuming,” Kromenaker said. “CSA’s provide that difference.”
An online database of CSA farms and
other guides to local agriculture can be
found at localharvest.org.

4/28

Henry Hansen & Friends

4/29

All Good Things

4/30 The Smokin Bandits 8 Year
Anniversary Show!
5/1

Earth Day Celebration!
Open Jam, Free Beer, Food & More

Image by Ashly Conrad

6// April 28, 2011

Second Supper

MUSIC

A taste of fresh Erin

Dublin Square serves up fine Irish fare
A Review by Marcel Dunn
Special to Second Supper

Irish culture runs deep in many of
America’s cities. After the beginning of the
Great (Potato) Famine in 1845, over 20 percent of the Emerald Isle’s population began a mass exodus, many of whom passed
through the inspection lines at Ellis Island.
Because work outside of the cities was scarce,
most of the Irish immigrants settled in the
major urban areas of the East Coast and in
the heartland. It was in these cities that many
established Irish restaurants and pubs, La
Crosse being among them. Yet, for the most
part, the Coulee Region is of a predominantly Scandinavian and Germanic heritage.
Thus, for as long as I have lived in the area
(on and off for 13 years), I cannot recall a
true Irish restaurant or even a quality Irishthemed bar (no, I don’t count Bennett’s).
Lucky for us, those days are numbered.
Located in the heart of the historic
business district, on the corner of Third and
Main streets, the brand new Dublin Square
Pub has brought some much needed Celtic
pride and cuisine to our city by the river. The
first thing I noticed about Dublin Square, after the pleasant surprise of outdoor seating,
was the design. Tables and chairs encircle
the long bar of polished oak that looks out
onto the street corner in a kind of squarish
circle around the pub. There are enough bar
stools at the taps for 10 or so people. Those

amusing Guinness posters with the toucans
and 1950s art design adorn the walls along
with other Irish memorabilia including a
rather large Harp Lager mirror that I kind
of wanted to walk out with. There are also
several high definition televisions tacked up
around the pub for the ubiquitous sports bar
experience. Though I went during the rush
hour of lunch on a Tuesday, I really enjoyed
the atmosphere created by the combination of heavy starches and heavy Guinness.
Patrons were talking animatedly with one
another and across the way to other tables.
It was a great hybrid of mid-afternoon lazing
and late night bar atmosphere.
Atmosphere and Irish flags does not a
good pub make, however. At an establishment like Dublin Square, the Guinness and
whiskey only go so far. It’s ultimately the
food that makes or breaks a pub-style restaurant and based on what I tried, I think
they will do very well. The menu had a large
number of options to choose from, including American fare like burgers, wraps and
sandwiches, but I couldn’t say no to some
more traditional Irish cuisine. So between
myself and my ever-present silent partner, I
decided on the fish and chips and a bowl of
the Irish beef stew. We also threw in an order
of onion rings, which were quite good, but at
the end of the day good onion rings are just,

CONTINUED ON PAGE 11

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Second Supper

The Majak Mixtape
By Jonathan Majak
jonathan.majak@secondsupper.com
We here at the Majak Mixtape could
not give a singular shit about the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
We have a hard time mustering give-a-damn
about weddings of people we actually, you
know, KNOW, so two royal stranger bitches
are not going to get us boohooing into some
Kleenex. But we, like the rest of the media,
know that the grand royal wedding makes
for great copy and easy coverage so here we
are, making a mixtape for the occasion in a
mix we’re calling “Do You Promise to Love,
Cherish and Mixtape.”
Our first song is “It’s a Culture” from
Times New Viking’s new album “Dancer Required.” The impending nuptials have created their own culture, with its own cottage
industry of selling merchandise like shirts,
hats, even a refrigerator with a picture of the
couple on the front. According to the “L.A.
Times,” CNN is planning to have some 125
reporters covering the wedding while even
the freakin’ Weather Channel and the Game
Show Network are getting in on the act.
Granted, we’d sort of love Prince William
having to answer where the craziest place he

ARTS
and his bride made whoopee on “The Newlywed Game.”
Our next song is “Welcome to Your
Wedding Day” from The Airborne Toxic
Event’s new album “All at Once.” The royal
wedding is, according to RadarOnline, going to cost some $34 million. But before
you start thinking that’s a HUGE budget for
some uncooked rice to be thrown, $32 million of it is just for security for the event. The
rest of it is being split amongst receptions,
wedding dress, cakes, making sure Prince
Harry doesn’t go to any parties dressed up
as a Nazi, etc. What’s a damn shame is that
nobody threw any money at getting Prince
William some hair plugs.
Our last song of the Mixtape is “Darlin’
Kate” from Emmylou Harris’ new album
“Hard Bargain.” We don’t know if Kate Middleton is darling at all. The press are desperate to make Kate Middleton the second coming of Princess Diana. We’re not quite sure
what that means other than we guess Kate
won’t become interesting until they divorce
each other? Maybe? No matter, we wish them
the best of luck on their nuptials as we start
the countdown to “TROUBLE IN PARADISE” headlines in the British press.

Get your uncensored dose of the stunning,
flawless, amazing, snatching the wig off your
favorites Majak Mixtape at The Majak Kingdom
www.majakkingdom.blogspot.com

to pin a genre on Brahman Shaman. It’s
catchy and upbeat, poppy and folkie, experimental at times, and lyrically direct without being overtly preachy. The songs are all
pretty consistent with one another and the
By Jason Crider
album flows rather seamlessly and at a very
jason.crider@secondsupper.com
steady pace. I realize that that could possi
Matt Olson is undoubtedly one of the bly be a bad thing, and it might be for some
most active musicians in the La Crosse area. listeners, but for me it definitely wasn’t. I
When he’s not playing shows, collaborat- found the charm of this record to be in its
ing with other musicians or recording vari- direct and simple approach, both musically
ous other artists in his home studio (known and lyrically.
Olson never hides his messages behind
as Ghost In My House Studio), he can be
overtly
convoluted lyrics, for example in the
found writing and recording music under
song
“Best
Behavior,” Olson sings “I’m so
the pseudonym Brahman Shaman.
sick and tired of/what you believe
Brahman Shaman’s latest rein” and then goes on to basically delease, Animist, is a double album
scribe how people shouldn’t need
featuring 20 songs that sound like
a religion to follow to be on their
some sort of musical journal on
“best behavior.” It’s a deeper ideal
which Olson reveals a lot of his
delivered in an accessible way, which
personal hopes and beliefs. The
is oddly reflected in the song strucmost impressive thing about this
ture: a simple pop melody concealalbum though, is that Olson not
ing a very interesting keyboard proBrahman
only wrote all the songs and progression (and in both cases you can
Shaman
vided all of the instrumentation,
choose which one to follow).
'Animist'
but recorded and produced the
Other standout tracks include
entire record in his home studio as
“Clairaudience,”
which starts off with a Nirwell. Olson displays an incredible amount of
talent throughout the entirety of the record, vana-style guitar riff before quickly evolving
and shares his views about life, personal ex- into somewhat of a surf rock sound, as well
periences and his distaste for religion. The as “Great Escape” with its clever New Age
record has an inherently spiritual feel to it, feel. Oh, and “Polyglot” and “To Educate,”
with heavy Eastern influences in both the just because they’re both so contagiously
music and lyrics. It’s somewhat reminiscent catchy.
of some of The Beatles later work in a way:
pop-infused catchy rock songs with the occasional Eastern tinge.
That being said it’s somewhat difficult

Brahman Shaman will play the Root Note on May
7 alongside local artists Reuben and Neon. The
show begins at 8:30 p.m. and have a $3 cover
charge.

UW-L play bites

For UW-La Crosse student and “Dracula” cast member Donnie Mezera, getting
into acting in college has given his life a
sense of direction.
“Before I found acting I was just that
weird guy,” Mezera said with a laugh between sips of his coffee. “Now I’m that weird
guy with a purpose.”
And one of his purposes is apparently
to be very busy. It’s a rainy Friday at Jules Coffee House and Mezera has spent most of the
afternoon dashing from one production to
the next. Mezera, a senior, is playing doctor/
vampire slayer Abraham Van Helsing in the
university’s production of the Bram Stoker
classic of lust, murder and fangs.
With something as iconic as the character of Dracula, a figure that has more often
than not been treated in a winking/vaguely
campy way of late, Mezera said that he was a
bit nervous since the Stephen Dietz version
they are doing plays the story fairly straightforward.
“We as a cast, we’ve had to worry about
that a lot,” said Mezera. “You’ve got this 19th
century decorum, and it is sort of campy. You
just have to stick to the story.”
Mezera also noted that shift in audience expectations puts a lot of pressure on
the cast and crew of the show.
“People have become desensitized
to violence,” he said. “When I stab a stake
through somebody’s heart, the audience
really wants to see it. If it was a movie, they

By Jonathan Majak
jonathan.majak@secondsupper.com

April 28, 2011 // 7
could use camera angles and CGI and go
inside the body and show everything. On
stage, it’s all about trying to capture some of
that but also the audience using their imagination; the audience will have to give over to
the fear.”
Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is, in a lot of
ways, the father of all the vampire off-springs
that populate film, books and television today. According to Mezera, going back to the
original has been a great thing to play.
“This is the story that brought it all,” he
explained. “Bram Stoker made it scary. It’s
all about once what you learn what’s happening, can you ever turn away from the
truth. It’s a scary idea.”
For Mezera, the cast has bonded in a
way that has lessened some of the stresses
that come along with putting on any production as well as allowing a certain amount
of freedom when it comes to acting choices
people may make.
“So many times during tech week, it’s
not just for the technical people but for the
actors to get their shit together,” said Mezera. “There isn’t really a lot of that here.
We’re a real connected cast; we can trust
each to really go further with things.”
And about that one very popular vampire franchise? Mezera has one thing to say
about that.
“F*** ‘Twilight,’” he chuckled. “And
you can quote me on that.”
Dracula opens Friday and runs until May 8 with
7:30 p.m. shows Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m.
matinees on Sunday. Tickets are $12, $10 for students/senior citizens/kids, and $4 for UW-L students. For more info, call (608) 785-8522.

IRON & WINE // JUNE 8
First Avenue • $27.75
This Saturday night the Ericksons, La Crosse’s favorite sisterly folk act, will play a show at the Cavalier Lounge, La Crosse’s
most comfortable venue. We imagine it will be like sitting in on the Ericksons’ den when they grew up in town — only
with the addition of high-end cocktails. Now residing in Minneapolis after a career-making residency in Brooklyn, this
sister act sings sweet but haunting folk songs usually accompanied on the acoustic guitar and banjo, but Saturday’s
free show starts at 8 p.m. and will feature a full band. Still, their best instrument of all may be their otherworldly vocal
harmonies, formed through a lifetime of song.

The Beer Review
Cask Aged Cream Stout
St. Croix Brewing Company
St. Paul, Minnesota
With some exceptions, there are basically two kinds of beer festivals — those that
cater to snobby beer drinkers and those that
showcase beer sellers. At snobby fests (here
I’m thinking of Madison’s Great Taste of the
Midwest or St. Paul’s Autumn Beer Review),
breweries pour their rarest, strongest and
most inventive creations. Tickets are expensive and hard to come by, but once inside
the festival grounds, drinkers know they’ll
find beers they may never see again. The
other kind of festival is more democratic
and middlebrow, an opportunity for indus-

try types to display their wares. I’d place last
weekend’s Between the Bluffs Beer, Wine &
Cheese festival into this second category, not
due to the quality of their samples (which
were generally fine) but because they were
already widely available. A few larger breweries like Central Waters and Rush River appreciably poured rare stock, but I didn’t see too
many beers I never had before.
The St. Croix Brewing Company from
St. Paul offered a nice exception to that rule.
I had never heard of this brewery prior to
the festival, and in fact their beers are not
currently available in La Crosse. But for being such a small operation, every brew they
brought was unique. Their Maple Sour Ale
may have been a better idea than was executed, but this Cask Aged Cream Stout was
my sleeper hit of the weekend. Cask-condi-

tioned ales are unfiltered and unpasteurized
and are frequently poured at high-end beer
gatherings. St. Croix had the only cask ale I
saw at the Oktoberfest grounds, so naturally
that’s what I chose to review.
Purchase: Sample of the Cask Aged
Cream Stout at the Between the Bluffs Beer,
Wine & Cheese festival; $30
Style: Cream Stout
Strength: Unknown
Packaging: The brewery rep poured this
directly from a nozzle on small silver keg.
Appearance: “Real ales” don’t have nitrogen or carbon dioxide additives, so there
was almost no head on this opaque inky beer.
Aroma: A strong aroma of vanilla beans
and lactose floats on top of smoky malts.
Taste: The Cream Stout tastes a bit like
vanilla ice cream melted into a Guinness.

The Best Food & Drink Specials in Town
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306 Pearl St.
784-0522

CARLIE'S ON THIRD

$5 domestic pitchers

1914 Campbell Road
782-7764

FEATURES

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786-9000

FISH'S BAR & GRILL

Bar Menu

TUESDAY

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Sweet at the first sip, it becomes more roasted
as it moves along the tongue and lingers with
an aftertaste of vanilla beans and cold coffee
with a drying kiss of noble hops.
Mouthfeel: Thin to medium-bodied
and a little “flat.”
Drinkability: It didn’t taste like there
was much alcohol in this, so I’d say it’s highly
drinkable. I know it was the only beer at the
festival I tried twice.
Ratings: There are literally no mentions
of this beer online, but everyone I knew at
Between the Bluffs loved it. The guy at the
St. Croix booth said he had talked a local distributor earlier in the afternoon, so there’s
a chance we might be seeing more bottles
of their Cream Stout — traditionally conditioned of course.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6
well, good onion rings.
Now, a lot of American restaurants have
tried their hand at fish and chips and from
my experience, most have failed. It seems
like an easy dish to make, what with the key
ingredients being battered cod and French
fries, but I honestly haven’t found a great
place for fish and chips in my travels. And
at the risk of sounding like a douche, I don’t
think anyone can say they’ve really had authentic fish and chips unless you’ve gotten
the take-out variety in England or Ireland,
wrapped in all its oil-soaked, newspaper glory
with potato wedges. I have had that pleasure,
but I also don’t think it’s fair to compare that
with Dublin Square’s dish, which I genuinely enjoyed. What you’ll get there are three
small pieces of cod in a lighter batter than
what you might find overseas, with shoestring French fries. The batter wasn’t quite
as crispy as I would have liked, but it was
certainly better than what you might find at
your local tavern’s Friday night fish fry where
the PBR costs a dollar and the women let the
muffin-tops fly. I enjoyed the “chips” as well,
which were crispy and not too salty. As for
the beef stew, I found it a bit underwhelming if only because the egg noodle to beef
ratio was totally in favor of the noodle, and
that just isn’t fair to the beef. It was definitely
tasty and like the fish and chips, I would absolutely recommend it, but it was basically
an unbalanced beef stroganoff. It did come
with a delicious soda bread bun though.
As I’ve tried to mention in all of my past

reviews, the dishes I’ve sampled for the articles are just a small portion of the entire
menu and so any negatives I have to say
about stews and fried fish shouldn’t reflect
on the restaurant as a whole. Both dishes
were tasty and worth a try and I’m personally
excited to get back to the Dublin Square for
some of the other Irish dishes and maybe a
burger. Wanting to go back to a restaurant is
honestly a bit rare in this city and I think the
folks over at Dublin Square are onto something. Cheers!

The Advice Goddess
By Amy Alkon
amy.alkon@secondsupper.com
The ultrasound of silence
My 27-year-old girlfriend has two kids
(ages 10 and 5). She is financially stable and
owns her own house. We began planning to get
married, but then she said she didn’t want any
more children. She cites the financial burden, the
time a baby would take from “us,” how she’d be
starting all over again, and not wanting to do
that to her body again. I think she’s being selfish,
seeing me as good enough to help raise her two
girls but not good enough to have a child with. I
want a child who’s genetically related to me, who I
can raise and form from the start. I told her, if she
won’t have a baby, I won’t take the next step and
get married and purchase a house together. Am I
in the wrong here, or is she?
—Feeling Used
It’s always so cute when a man
announces “WE’RE having a baby!”—as
if “WE” will be getting huge, bloated, and

Second Supper

THE LAST WORD
hormonal, and nuzzling the toilet bowl for
nine months. And then there’s the really fun
part, when WE get strapped to a table, legs
spread, and we’re surrounded by strangers
shouting “Push! Push!” (As if it’s sheer
laziness that keeps a person from squeezing
a Mack truck out a carport-sized opening.)
Your fiancee was a teen mother way
back before you’d get a reality series for that
and has now spent over a third of her life
being somebody’s mommy. Not surprisingly,
she isn’t into having yet another human
being to be responsible for for the next 20plus years -- understanding all too well that
“Hey, can we get a new person?!” isn’t like
getting another kitten (as in, what’s one
more once you’ve already got two shedding
on the couch?).
Unfortunately, it seems you assumed
there’d be some sort of kid pro quo here:
You drive her kids to soccer and admire
their crayonings, and she’d make you a
kid of your own. You’re right to expect
some really big hugs for doing the standin dad thing, but just because she has the
womanparts doesn’t mean she owes it to you
to fire up the assembly line and give you an
heir. What you're calling selfishness on her
part is actually a sign of emotional health
-- not being so needy that she’d agree to be
your baby vending machine, only to end up
resentful and angry (“Here’s your lunchbox,
you little snot!”).
You don’t get a kid out of her by
acting like one—sniffling that you’re
“not good enough to have a child with”

and announcing, “No baby, no marry, no
housie!” Instead of trying to pout and guilt
her into more motherhood, discuss this
like adults to see whether there’s any wiggle
room here. (Don’t get your hopes up.) As
for your question about which one of you is
in the wrong, you’re probably just wrong for
each other. Ultimately, this could be one of
those unfortunate situations where love just
isn’t enough. Two people also have to want
the same major things: Must love dogs. Must
want kids. Need to be horsewhipped daily.
Should this relationship crash and
burn, try to learn from it: If you really, really
want to be something’s dad, prudent family
planning involves casually putting that out
there as early as the first date. This isn’t
foolproof, but it beats the other kind of
family planning: planning to swap out the
wife’s birth control pills for 30 days of Tic
Tacs: “Gee, my Ortho-Novum tastes mintyfresh!”

case, somebody has to say hi. (One wonders
what you’d do for “Lovely weather we’re
having” or “Have a nice day.”) If you care at
all about your daughter, think hard about
what creepy, narcissistic competitiveness
led you to go home with her ex and how
creepy you’re still being, wondering how
you might snag her okay to go back for
seconds. Sure, your daughter said she’s
over the guy. And she could be—more than
anybody has ever been over anybody—and
still never get over hearing her mother
say, “Oh, sweetie, I bumped into your ex…
and then I ground into him for hours.”

Mommy dirtiest
Last week, my 25-year-old daughter’s exboyfriend said hi to me in a bar, and one thing
led to another, and we ended up in bed. I felt
absolutely terrible about what happened, and then
my daughter, out of the blue, announced that she’s
finally over him. In fact, she insisted she is. Is there
any way I could keep seeing him, and if so, should
I tell her?
—Don’t Want To Lose My Daughter
A mother doesn’t risk her relationship
with her daughter for just anything. In your

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